Statehouse standoff over 'right to work' restarts | READ BILL

INDIANAPOLIS - As quickly as it had stopped, the Statehouse scuffle over a contentious "right to work" measure started again

Hundreds of labor union supporters packed the Statehouse on Tuesday night for the State of the State address delivered by Gov. Mitch Daniels, who made the proposal a key component of his speech and his 2012 agenda.

They shouted chants that echoed through the halls of the building, and were a dull roar within the chamber for the duration of the governor's half-hour speech.

Trucks driven by labor supporters circled the Statehouse, and hundreds more protesters lined up outside the building.

A few legislative Democrats skipped the speech. Sen. Tim Skinner, D-Terre Haute, refused to stand up as Daniels entered the chamber, and he looked down at his desk with his head in his hand while the governor addressed "right to work."

That scene was a day in the making.

The latest development in the dustup started at an early-morning meeting of a House committee that was scheduled to vote on the bill – and advanced it on to the full chamber, on an 8-5 party-line vote.

The meeting lasted just six minutes, as its Republican chairman – Rep. Douglas Gutwein of Francesville – allowed Democrats to offer no amendments, and shut off debate.

That led to howls from the minority party's members. "I think the light of democracy just went out in the Indiana House," said Rep. Clyde Kersey, D-Terre Haute.

Angered by that turn of events, Democrats refused to show up both times that House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, tried to convene the chamber in the afternoon.

Since Republicans control 60 of the House's 100 seats, that move – a boycott that blocks the constitutionally-mandated two-thirds presence of all members in order to conduct business – is the only one Democrats can use to stop legislation they don't like.

They also filed a complaint, alleging that regular House committee procedures had been ignored.

"It puts them on formal notice that what they did was wrong," said House Minority Leader B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend. "I don't know what will slow them down or stop them, other than what we're doing."

Republicans shot back that extended public testimony and debate was not necessary.

A joint meeting of the House and Senate labor committees took five hours of public testimony on the identical "right to work" bills – House Bill 1001 and Senate Bill 269 – last week.

And a summer legislative study committee held several meetings, which included a combined 18 or so hours of testimony on the issue.

Gutwein said he declined to consider amendments because Democrats did not file them until late Monday night, and he did not see them until an hour before this morning's meeting.

Other Republicans said the vote's outcome was certain before the committee even met.

"I didn't choose the way the meeting was handled this morning, but everybody knows on the committee how everybody was going to vote," said Rep. Jerry Torr, the Carmel Republican who authored the "right to work" measure.

"I suspect they're going to walk out again no matter what we do," Torr said.

The debate is over a measure that would allow workers to opt out of paying union dues as a condition of employment.

It's an idea that Republicans support, saying that workers should be free to choose whether they want to support those unions, and that it's a freedom that some businesses require when they're deciding where to locate their operations.

Democrats oppose it, saying it would undermine the bargaining position of groups that protect workers' wages and benefits.

And their labor allies say it's unfair for unions to have to represent in workplace disputes employees who opted not to pay dues.

The Senate's labor committee advanced that chamber's "right to work" bill on to the full Senate last week. Since Republicans have a supermajority of more than two-thirds of the seats there, Democrats have no leverage, so its passage is all but certain.

Meanwhile, in the House, no action can be taken until Democrats – or at least seven of them, so that 67 members are present – return to their seats.

Bauer said the party's members will meet behind closed doors on Wednesday, as they have each day since this year's 10-week session started last week, to decide whether they'll be on the floor.